Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XVIII

People on forums tend to see what is easy to digest and therefore holds no guilt for their own ancestors.  That is precisely what has happened with the attention drawn to the few plantation owners in the South rather than the overall picture.

Evidence shows that the immigrants who came to this country were treated in the same way as their black brethren by those in the North.  The North merely swapped black slavery  for another form: whites doing their bidding in the same way as blacks before them.

The picture that is handed down for the world to see is that blacks or immigrants working for Northerners were never ill-treated.

It is time to banish the notion of the genteel Northern family life that included their immigrant employees almost like they were family members.   This is utterly ridiculous.  But it is the way history has handed down the victor's version of the truth.

Now back to the Browns and DeWolfs, etc. and the slave ships so that we can move along on this tempestuous course, drawing us closer to the war.

Before the Revolution, the West Indies sugar islands had been Rhode Island slave ships' main ports of call; but with the coming of the cotton gin (at the end of the 18th century) some Deep South states were ready for workers for their big cotton plantations.

In those last frantic years of the legal slave trade-(the federal law banning African slave imports took effect Jan. 1, 1808) the smaller port of Bristol, which was a few hours' sail north on the Narrangansett Bay, took Newport's place.

The Bristol era would see two of America's most egotistical slave merchants, John Brown (Providence) and Capt. James DeWolf (Bristol) join forces to protect the trade. (Probably the richest slave trader in U.S. history, James DeWolf captained or financed almost two dozen African voyages. (Millstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.) John Brown led one of the first violent acts of rebellion, the 1772 attack on the British customs schooner Gaspee that patrolled Narragansett Bay. (Brown University Library)

The two could have been twins even though Brown was a whole generation older than DeWolf. They were both imposing men and, in his maturity, Brown (who was called "the Providence Colossus") got so big that he filled an entire carriage seat. The leaner DeWolf had a sailor's thick hands. Brown, probably the richest man in Providence, shared a business with three brothers, while DeWolf, once reputed to be the richest man in America, shared his empire with no less than 7 brothers.

The two men, Brown and DeWolf, turned into plutocrats, above the law. (Some of this information on these two comes from: Notorious Triangle, Coughtry, p.215, Browns of Providence Plantations, Hedges, vol. 1., New England Chronicle, Howe, p.119, John Brown in United States Chronicle, March 26, 1789, John Brown remarks in Congress: In Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade, vol. 3, p. 383.)

A few years after he became the first American indicted for violating the federal government's earliest attempt to restrict the slave trade, John Brown entered Congress (1799). DeWolf served a term in the Senate, even though during his years as a slave ship captain he'd been accused of drowning a female slave infected with smallpox. (Howe, Mount Hope, pp. 105-106.)

Brown was acquitted, DeWolf wasn't even arrested for what were considered ordinary crimes. (Slave captains routinely ordered sick slaves thrown overboard, as a matter of hygiene, to keep them from contaminating the entire ship.) One time Brown suggested DeWolf not run for state legislature, for fear his reputation would harm slave merchants' interests.

But if either man retains the stigma of slave trader, it's Brown. The family name's preserved in Brown University, which the family helped found; in fact, John himself laid the cornerstone of the first building of Brown University! (One famous graduate of Brown University was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr.)

Brown's home, which is still standing on the Brown campus was once described as "the most magnificent and elegant private mansion" in America! (Brown family background: Hedges, Browns of Providence Plantations, vol. 1.)

Much of the Brown family's early wealth came from regular West Indian commerce, privateering (in fact, legalized pirating), the manufacture of spermaceti candles, and an iron foundry. (Their pig iron and candles also went into the holds of Newport slave ships.)

The family was rather short on sentiment. Brown's father, James, and uncle, Obediah, first tried out the African market in 1736. Obediah captained their first ship, the Mary, because James wrote him while he was at sea that their mother had passed away. "She died about two months after you sailed, and I hope that she is now more happy than either of us are, we being burthened with the world and she at rest as I hope," The letter continued, dwelling mostly on business, and closed with, "If you cannot sell all your slaves....bring some home. I believe they will sell well. Get molasses if you can and if you cannot, come without it." (Ibid. p. 71) (So much for the woman who gave them birth!)

A 2nd Brown slave ship was lost to a French privateer 2 decades later, and a 3rd, the Sally, had such awful luck that it soured the brothers on the trade for good. (Failed voyages drove many out of the business.)

The records expose the trade's perils, routines, and the tangled roots of Rhode Island's slave trading families. The ill-fated Sally is special because her voyage records, from Sept. 1764 to Oct. 1765, are among the fullest left behind from any American slave ship. (One of the first captains the Browns tried to engage for the Sally, Simeon Porter,(James DeWolf's uncle, also the family guide in slave trading) had sage advice which is quoted in several histories: "wort'r down yr rum and measure it short".

Summer of 1764 saw three Brown brothers personally go to Newport to arrange for the Sally to be outfitted: 17,000 gallons of rum, goods to barter: crates of candles, a small armory of muskets and cutlasses, and 40 sets of manacles and shackles. (If the Sally returned with 140 slaves, the Browns would turn a profit.)